The Discipline of Teamwork

Book excerpt: "James R. Barker′s contributions to the extant literature on one of the most significant transformations in contemporary organizational practice include 1) Embedding the discussion of teamwork within the broader context of organizational and social culture, 2) Broadening the treatment of participative management to include both local control and positive discipline, and 3) Demonstrating the important theoretical and practical links between the concepts of member participation and member identification. As a bonus, readers are introduced to the ′discursive foundations′ for fashioning productive conversations about participative management that can be both valid and valuable." --David Whetten, Professor of Management, Brigham Young University "James R. Barker′s The Discipline of Teamwork makes a number of important contributions simultaneously. It demonstrates the power of good analytical theory, drawing on a classical tradition of writers such as Weber, Durkheim, and Foucault to illuminate the organizational, moral, and discursive realities of a major management change program in an organization. Beyond mere advocacy of a change process, as in the ′popular′ management literature, it provides analysis of how and what such changes in process mean for the lived-experience and self-understanding of the people who have to make sense of these changes that consultants and managers advocate." --Stewart Clegg, Faculty of Business,University of Technology, Sydney "The Discipline of Teamwork represents a major work at the fulcrum of organizational culture, organizational communication, and social change. Barker spent over two years collecting data through depth participant-observation and intensive interviewing in a high-tech manufacturing company that made and intentional shift in its organizational structure and culture from traditional methods of assembly to the use of self-directed work teams. From his position of trust within the ranks of both employees and management, he documents and analyzes this radical transition, carefully studying how the changes were implemented, their latent and manifest outcomes, and the modification made to them from both bottom and top levels. This work documents a paradigmatic revolution in the business world that has ultimately anticipated and the laided the ground work for the quality management movement and its successor, thinking out of the box." --Patricia A. Adler, University of Colorado Recent years have brought team-based and collaborative management to the forefront of our organizational leadership. Teamwork has permeated all aspects of the work world and continues to gain momentum. In The Discipline of Teamwork James R. Barker explores the social consequences of this participatory work environment. Writing from the team member perspective, James R. Barker focuses on the human cost of participation and the effects of this discipline on team members. He details how the discipline develops, matures, and creates social consequences for organizational participants, and provides insight into how we can make teamwork a positive experience for all involved. This lively and well-written book will provoke team members, as well as management scholars, students, and executive consultants, to consider how the discipline of teamwork affects them and what they ought to do about these consequences.